Tim Oviatt has been living in his Chrysler Sebring
convertible since January, often parking it outside the home and bath products
store where he works part-time.

The single, 64-year-old gay man had been renting a shared
flat with two roommates in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood throughout
2012. But in December the landlord asked Oviatt and the other tenant to move out,
as he wanted to live alone.

Lacking enough money to secure a new apartment, Oviatt has
spent the last seven months largely in his vehicle as he tries to secure
affordable housing in the city.

"It is a struggle," said Oviatt, who relocated to
San Francisco in the 1970s from Michigan. "I had always lived relatively comfortably
but one circumstance after another piled up."

The downturn in the economy and a rent hike dispute with
his landlord led Oviatt in 2009 to close his Castro clothing store All American
Boy after 26 years in business.

"No matter how much I slashed staff or reduced
inventory, I couldn't make ends meet," said Oviatt.

It took him 12 months to find work, albeit it is not
full-time.

"I was unemployed for a year. It was really difficult
to make ends meet," he said.

Then his partner of 18 years, Roland Espinosa, died due to
AIDS complications, and Oviatt had to put their house up for sale in 2011.

"I had to sell because of financial issues," said
Oviatt, admitting that he "hurt myself too. I got bad advice and took
equity out of the house when I shouldn't have."

Resolved to remain in the city he has called home for four
decades, Oviatt turned to the AIDS Housing Alliance earlier this year for
assistance.

"They've been a lifesaver. But even they can't get
through the bureaucracy involved," said Oviatt. "Without them, I
would be in my car all the time."

The nonprofit was able to land him a room in a
single-room-occupancy hotel but it was "a pigsty," so Oviatt moved
out. In May a studio with bathroom became available in the West Hotel in the
Tenderloin that Oviatt decided to apply for through a rental assistance program.

But he has had to navigate through a byzantine system at
both the city's housing authority and two affordable housing providers where
paperwork is repeatedly lost and missteps delay the approval process. He is
"quite confident," however, that he will be able to move into the
unit by August 1.

Tim Oviatt, who used to own All American Boy in the
Castro, has been mostly living in his car since the beginning of the year.(Photo: Jane Philomen Cleland)

"It is one thing after another. By the good graces of
co-workers and friends, I can couch dive for a time. But I don't want to wear
out my welcome," said Oviatt. "At least I am not sleeping literally
on the sidewalk because I am sleeping in my vehicle."

While it has long been known that a large percentage of
homeless youth in San Francisco are LGBT, new data is showing that alarming
numbers of LGBT adults in the city are also struggling to find housing or are at
risk of losing their homes.

In late June the biennial San Francisco Homeless Point-In-Time
Count and Survey was released and, for the first time, included statistics on
LGBT people. The 2013 report found that out of a total of 7,350 homeless
people, more than one in four (29 percent) identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual
or "other" for a total of 2,132.

Based on the report's findings and estimates that at least
94,234 LGBT people live in San Francisco, LGBT housing activists estimate that
2.3 percent are homeless. And they predict that LGBT city residents are 258
percent as likely to become homeless as the general population.

Brian Basinger, who founded the AIDS Housing Alliance and
now oversees three additional homeless programs under the umbrella agency named
the Q Foundation, hopes that the data on LGBT homeless people in the city will
"finally" serve as a "wake-up call within the LGBT community and
within the San Francisco leadership on the disparate needs" of LGBT
residents and people living with HIV and AIDS for housing services.

"Those of us in the anti-displacement and homeless
prevention world have been trying to highlight the mechanisms whereby the LGBT
community especially becomes homeless and the need to do something about
it," said Basinger. "These results, I think, really crystalize what
we were talking about."

Asked about the report's findings, gay District 8 Supervisor
Scott Wiener told the Bay Area Reporter that
"it really underlines the need to create more affordable housing not just
for youth but for others as well" in the city.

"I think it is a reminder that people in our community
are homeless and at risk for becoming homeless and we have to make sure we are
helping them to remain housed and getting housing for those who need it,"
said Wiener.

Two other reports released in recent weeks have demonstrated
that LGBT seniors and older adults living with HIV or AIDS in San Francisco are
particularly at risk of becoming homeless.

A study commissioned by the city's LGBT Aging Policy Task
Force, which surveyed 616 LGBT city residents aged 60 to 92 years old, found
that those respondents who live alone, have lower incomes, and are less
educated "are at elevated risk for housing instability."

The study found that while 57 percent of older San Francisco
residents own a home, just 41 percent of LGBT participants did. A majority, 54
percent, are renters compared to 41 percent of older adults in the city who
rent.

And while 57 percent of adults in San Francisco are
"very confident" they will remain housed, the study found that only
32 percent of the LGBT participants did.

"There has been a sense for a long time that LGBT
people are at greater risk of homelessness," said out lesbian lead
researcher Karen I. Fredriksen-Goldsen, Ph.D., a professor at the University of
Washington and director of the Institute for Multigenerational Health who
oversaw the study.

A report based on the responses from 116 people living with
HIV aged 50 and older in the San Francisco area found that "a significant
minority of participants" had "unstable or marginal housing."
Those living in SRO hotels or who were homeless comprised nearly 15 percent of
the sample.

Loren Meissner, 60, who is HIV-positive and conducted the
research as part of his master's project at San Francisco State University,
noted in the report that a majority of those surveyed rely on public assistance
or public disability such as Social Security SSI (Supplemental Security Income)
or SSD (Social Security Disability) to make ends meet.

"These income sources do not have an allowance which
adequately matches the costs associated with living in expensive cost of living
cities and nearby suburbs," wrote Meissner.

With the majority of people in the city living with AIDS and
HIV now in their 50s, the bulk of which are gay men, their risk of becoming
homeless will grow as they hit retirement age and their income levels drop,
predicted Basinger.

"A tidal wave is coming," he said. "It is
actually already hitting. We are completely unprepared for it."

Gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos, who did not respond
to a request for comment for this story, has held ad-hoc meetings about the
issue over the last year with both LGBT leaders and city staffers. And the
mayor and board did allocate some specific funding in the new budget for fiscal
year 2013-2014 to address LGBT youth homelessness.

But City Hall has yet to announce any initiatives designed
to primarily focus on LGBT homeless issues similar to its creation of the LGBT
Aging Policy Task Force.

"We do have some proposals around preventing
homelessness in general for the board but they are not specific to LGBT
people," said Wiener.

LGBT housing advocates are calling on both city officials
and LGBT agencies to devote more attention and funding toward solving
homelessness within the LGBT community. Up to now, they contend, neither the
city nor LGBT nonprofits have done enough to address the issue.

"I think, basically, we need to think tank this and
treat it as a crisis," queer housing activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who
works for the Housing Rights Committee, told the Bay Area Reporter
. "We have poured millions into gay marriage and
look at where it's gotten us as a community. We need to do the same for those
in our community in need. We can't count on the city to fund everything. We
have to do it for ourselves, too. Like we did with AIDS."